


i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night

by TheBizarreHairTrio



Series: let the ocean take you into deadly embrace (one piece x the lobby crossover) [6]
Category: One Piece, The Lobby
Genre: (noah voice) sign me the FUCK up, Crossover, Gen, Laugh Tale, Noah-centric, Not Beta Read, Poneglyphs (One Piece), and then he just. STOMPS. on everything noah stands for (i.e. trust), and wouldn't acknowledge the fact that. the celestial dragons AREN'T the real gods here fam, cp9 could've been noah's favored..... except they're all "ooooh celestial dragons.... best", fuck you Teach, fucking celestial dragons, he doesn't know what to do!! he's gotta wait for someone else to help the lonely person, he really doesn't like.... people who betray people's trust. and breaks their trusts, i don't think i meant to write. this???? but here it is, i was essentially just kinda ??? at what to do about a noah-centric fic tbh, just like. he's apparently a big deal and quin and dave and judas like him like. a lot, like. DAMN. i felt that, noah is sad about teach.... was thinking he could proud of his little lonely strategist, noah is.... polite, noah's patron to the lonely and he's like. please don't be lonely anymore, roger is like. well noah doesn't really know about him mostly, yes the last line is me remembering how i cried when luffy said it hurts being alone, yes. laugh tale is noah's island because?? secret island you can't fucking get to???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBizarreHairTrio/pseuds/TheBizarreHairTrio
Summary: Those who hold he who is the night's favor tend to be lonely; broken people he picks up and shelters in his darkness. It's hard, being alone; he can't do much for them except hope that one day they don't have to be alone.
Relationships: Noah & Judas (The Lobby), Noah (The Lobby) & Nico Robin
Series: let the ocean take you into deadly embrace (one piece x the lobby crossover) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1769800
Kudos: 1





	i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night

Who is it who walks in the shadows unseen? asks he who is the night, drumming incorporeal fingers on locked doors to a rhythm no one else can hear. Who is it who slinks past silently, as a thief, a spy, an assassin? 

There’s a rumbling in the darkness, an unheard beat of an unknown instrument that no one can hear. He frowns, features shifting and forever indistinct. It’s those of his domain, the spies and assassins, but only just so; for they worship false idols, the self proclaimed gods in their false holy land. 

They can’t hear the rhythm in the night that he produces, the beat in the shadows, and he who is the night exhales a sigh, though he does not need to. Spies and assassins they may be, but his favored? Far from it, when they call the false divine the true gods.

(noah’s favored are few and far between; the ones who edge into his domains, whose ears might catch the rhythm in the night, already belong to another

he’s not so rude as to steal another’s favored)

He walks through darkness, following a leading rhythm, and finds a lonely child under the light of the moon. He smiles, reaches for the lonely one—

—but recoils, for the child is a storm, and he who is the night has no wish to tangle with they who are the storm. He sinks back into shadows, retreating, but lightning interrupts his withdrawal and they who are the storm laugh at him with the boom of thunder. 

Come, they demand, dark clouds rumbling. He is a night storm, they say. He is mine and yours as well, they do not say, but he who is the night can hear them anyway.

Lonely, he calls the child, wrapping him up in warm shadows.

Outcast, they agree, mellow winds intertwining with the darkness of his shelter. 

Ours, they both do not say, yet it reverberates between them either way.

(night storm, noah agrees with, because he is both, a lonely outcast. he strategizes, and noah is almost proud of his night storm, but—

but he kills a man for a devil’s heart, betrays a family, and trust is so very broken due to his actions

noah cradles the broken shards of trust in his hands, ashamed of his night storm and the pride he felt for him)

He who is the night drifts away, swallowed by the shadows, and emerges by the side of a bird of a girl. She’s hunted, scared, unknowingly of who to trust, and he reaches out to her, to give her a gift so she can hide from her pursuers—

—but the light of she who is time is already seeping through her veins; the bird of a girl is drenched in it. He recoils again, nearly withdrawing once more, but the girl is still terrified and alone, and he who is the night sees  _ hatred _ in her mind for she who is time, so intense and immense he draws back. She is blessed, but she does not want it, hates she who is time with all that she is, and he reaches out again, guilty and ashamed but only wishing to help.

He gives her concealment from her hunters, a little gift to blend her into crowds. He gives her silence in movement, lets shadows fall darker on her and tries to ease her loneliness. 

One day, he tells her, though she cannot hear him. One day you won’t feel alone. One day,  _ you  _ will be the hunter.

(noah doesn’t visit runo. he hovers around the girl, named for runo’s robins, and feels guilty, wonders if runo can see the shadows of the gifts he’s given the girl

he doesn’t know how to help her, either of them. he doesn’t know how to make the girl stop hating runo, doesn’t know how to make runo see that she doesn’t deserve to be hated

he wishes he could do something)

Hello, secrets, says he who is the night, dark fog reaching for the glyphs. He listens to them, learns their secrets, and moves onto the next. Sometimes he lingers, lets himself get lost in the low hum, the staccato, the marcato, the legato, the tenuto. It soothes him, the individual rhythms that radiate from the glyphs. It feels alive.

He worries, sometimes, for those who seek to uncover the secrets of the glyphs. Not for what they will find, but the journey they'll take in seeking the glyphs out. There's danger all around them, from false gods who seek to keep things secret and unknown, willing to commit unspeakable atrocities to keep them hidden. His gifts can only go so far, can't conceal them and keep them safe indefinitely. He knows that so many of them will be lost in their bid to uncover the secrets, knows only the lucky few will survive and succeed in their endeavors. He can't protect them all, but he wants to. 

In the end, he retreats to the island where the world’s biggest secret lays, placed there by she who is time’s favored. The secret the now dead and gone King, favored by change, life, and chaos, had discovered with his crew. He thinks fondly of him, the King who had no use for strategy and concealment, merely trust between him and his fellows, secrets only wanted for the journey it took to uncover them. He respects him, for all that he does not favor him; honest to a fault and knowing nothing of subtlety or blending in, not with the aura of a King drawing attention towards him. 

(noah hopes the next one to set foot on his island has the same bonds of trust with their companions, the same allure for secrets and the adventures that lead towards them

most of all, he hopes the next king will know the burden of loneliness, and will never let people suffer alone)


End file.
